Oh, the mechanics were definitely an issue because half the pre-merge quit, and then when they ran out of replacements people just stuck around long enough to get eliminated without PMing anyone. The worst part of the pre-merge was how many people weren't playing it.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH PLEASE GO JUMP INTO A FREEZING LAKE - Mr. FreezePlan B: it serves you right if i (hug) you in the face though, right?I love it when people talk about my brutal murder in front of me, it's actually my secret fetish - Sangmin

And that was a function of not being transparent of what the pre-merge was. A number of players were just like "I don't want to play this." Also the jigsaws were, by far, the biggest mistake of anything within the design itself (should have had far fewer, the rewards for them be much weaker, and instead set things up to force trades to be a more important thing to emphasize the social aspect further).

The constant shipwrecks making people have to prioritize relationships was 100% intentional, and I'm honestly okay with how that played out. Without that, the game would have been more likely to have just been a straight-pagong (it was looking like one at the start of the merge even despite that).

In post 40, Haschel Cedricson wrote:Swaps and Shakeups: 2. There were multiple swaps at unpredictable times.

We should maybe define the swaps one a bit more because I hard-disagree with this and think anything 2-swaps and below should be a 0 and that 3 or 4 swaps should be a 1.

IMO it really depends on the number of players

3 swaps in a 24 player game is way different than 3 swaps in an 18 player gameoh nvm monty said this

and regarding the other questions:

Yes, it's enough of an issue that we need a way to clarify it.MLS was a big impetus for this.But also, the backlash to the returnee twist in Civ and what mods considered "not that twisty" vs what players saw as "not that twisty" means we need to speak with the same language.

Mafia games split and splintered into queues over time as the format grew because there became a need for people to know what they were getting into. This is our first step into that, because the idea of what it means to play a Survivor game has evolved over time -- both on the show, and online. Someone who comes in from ONLY watching the show would be completely flabbergasted by some of the things we consider to be "standard" in a LSG.

So, this is about creating a language that mods, veterans, and newbies can all use to understand each other.

What Zoraster said tickled at my brain a little, the idea of either no swaps, or three tribes merging into two then one being the baseline sounds like a good idea. I think it just doesn't sound like a lot when it is. It also depends on the size of the merge, if a 24-player merges at 12, 3 swaps is still a swap every 4 rounds.Reck, do you have any thoughts on the questions I asked about Communication?

I also think twisty isn't all a bad thing, there's a reason we like to spice stuff up. We've just normalized all the crazy stuff that happens because it doesn't compare to the even crazier stuff.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH PLEASE GO JUMP INTO A FREEZING LAKE - Mr. FreezePlan B: it serves you right if i (hug) you in the face though, right?I love it when people talk about my brutal murder in front of me, it's actually my secret fetish - Sangmin

If anyone thinks the point of this is to "criminalize" twists or creative designs in some way, that's very not the point. We should ideally have games range across the complexity spectrum so that everyone gets stuff they are into.

Post 45, regarding what does and doesn't raise some points, since people posted some examples of what they think ratings should be.

I HATE YOU SO MUCH PLEASE GO JUMP INTO A FREEZING LAKE - Mr. FreezePlan B: it serves you right if i (hug) you in the face though, right?I love it when people talk about my brutal murder in front of me, it's actually my secret fetish - Sangmin

In post 45, Shadoweh wrote:this raises some interesting questions around grey areas that we can consider:

DBZA Had an item that let you communicate with the jury. Do you think that should affect the Communication rating?

Civilization had a private forum controlled by the winner of it that let them invite chosen friends at any time. Should that affect the Communication rating? what if it was a chatzy

In Magic Kingdom the majority of my communications with people weren't PMs at all, it was all skype chats and chatrooms. What kind of rating does that earn?Do the 1-4 immunity necklaces handed out every round during the merge count as items/an outstanding twist enough to get max points?

I didn't mean that Big Brother in Survivor is normal :p but that we wouldn't use a scale that decides if survivor games are whack to say a BB game is normal so shouldn't do the other way around either and MLS was not a Survivor game.

I would say that both of the first examples would affect communications, yes?

In post 79, BROseidon wrote:If anyone thinks the point of this is to "criminalize" twists or creative designs in some way, that's very not the point. We should ideally have games range across the complexity spectrum so that everyone gets stuff they are into.